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Fado's New Diva  By Hugh Biggar
April 11, 2004

In the darkened concert hall, the fadista Mariza is a swirling center of light and song. Her tight red top, floor-length black and pink skirt and platinum blond hair all blend as she spins and struts across the stage. She is a small storm of passion, color and voice. Mariza has also been a small storm on the world's music scene. She is the world's best- known singer of fado, a form of Portuguese music that, with its guitar-backing and soulful themes, is often compared to American blues and Argentine tango. With her powerful voice and striking personal style, Mariza has also become a fast-rising star outside of fado circles. In 2003 she was named best European artist by BBC radio at their annual awards show. Her first album, Fado em Mim, achieved platinum status in Portugal after its release in 2001. Her second album Fado Curvo, reached number six on Billboard magazine's world music chart in 2003. On each album, her songs are infused with pain, joy and saudade, a Portguese word for yearning that is at the essence of fado music.

Mariza embraces such themes of saudade and fado's history. "I love and respect all the old fado," she said before a recent performance at Stanford University. "I go there and drink all the songs and all the energy." At the same time, however, she also brings a new energy and flavor to the world of fado-one rooted in her origins.

Mariza was born Mariza Nunes, the child of a Portuguese civil servant and a Mozambiquan mother. In 1976, when she was three, her family returned to Portugal after Mozambique won its independence. They settled in the Lisbon neighborhood of Mouraria, a move that would shape Mariza's future.

"The neighborhood where I grew up, the way of living, you could all call fado," Mariza
said. Mouraria, located next to Lisbon's harbor, is considered the birthplace of fado. Fado, which means fate or destiny, developed there in the 19th century, initially sung in bars and brothels by sailors and slaves who brought with them musical influences from all over the world. Rather than purely songs, the music was also considered deeply emotional poetry.

"People think fado is always melancholy," Mariza said, "but that's not true, fado is all types of feelings. It is unconscious, a memory of something."

Over time, women, known as fadistas, carried on the fado tradition. As a part of that tradition, the women sang while standing still, and while wearing black dresses and shawls. Fado's golden age was in the early 20th century and then fell out of favor until recently, existing only in isolated pockets such as the streets of Mouraria.

It was in Mouraria that Mariza discovered fado as a child. The music flowed into the streets from the neighborhood's many bars and restaurants. Mariza's father ran a small restaurant too, where he held weekly fado performances. With her father's encouragement, she first began singing for diners at the age of five. "To learn fado," she said, "you learn on the streets, in restaurants, you don't have schools."

However, she quit singing at the age of thirteen after being constantly told by fado aficionados her style was too different. Her friends also considered it to be music for old people. So in her teens, Mariza turned instead to singing funk, jazz and pop songs, playing in a band for a time in Lisbon's casinos. She later traveled to Mozambique, Cape Verde and Brazil, learning along the way. In Cape Verde, she learned a local version of fado. In Brazil, she studied bossa nova while working on a cruise ship. All of these influences would shape her fado singing when she returned to Portugal and Mouraria at the age of eighteen.
Upon her return to Portugal, she turned again to fado, singing in small clubs. She gained notice and in 1999 was invited to perform in televised tribute concerts. They were held for a revered fadista, Amalia Rodrigues, who had died that year. Mariza's performances put her on the map in Portugal, bringing her attention as a new kind of fadista, one with a radically different approach.
Portuguese composer Nuno Nazareth Fernandes described her as, "an adorable extra-terrestrial being, someone sent by the Great Creator to reinvent the fado."

Even now, Mariza disputes this, seeing herself very much as a traditionalist.

"It's not a break from tradition," she said of her unusual style of dress and her love of dancing on stage. "It's my personality. (Fado) used to be danced by sailors and slaves." Like a true fadista, she said, "I feel the rhythm, I feel the African thing, maybe because I am half-African. I'm feeling the words, I'm feeling the music, I'm feeling everything."

She soon plans to writes about these feelings and traditions in a book. The book, she promised, will be readable. "The book won't be academic, very heavy," she said, noting that most books on fado are written in this way. "It will be light."

Other than the book and touring, she has no plans to write her own songs or record another album. "I don't think I'm ready. I have to live more...I have to have more baggage." Otherwise, she said, "I have no small idea of what I'm going to do."

To her samples of Mariza's songs, please visit:
http://www.ritmoartists.com/Mariza/audio_mz.htm

Contact Hugh Biggar at hbiggar@stanford.edu.

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